Biographical Note:

Much of the biographic information about the Barlow-Olmstead Family was gathered through various family genealogies as well as information found in the collection. However, biographic information on Joel Barlow is plentiful since he was an American author, diplomat, and politician. Joel Barlow was born March 27, 1745, to Samuel and Esther (Hull) Barlow in Redding, Connecticut. After a brief period of study at Dartmouth College, he went to Yale and received his degree in 1778. Soon after college, he enlisted for service in the Continental Army as a chaplain and served until the conclusion of the American Revolution. Following the war, he married Ruth Baldwin, the sister of one of his Yale classmates, and they settled in Hartford, Connecticut, where he pursued a career as an editor and writer. He formed “The Hartford Wits” with Richard Alsop, John Trumbull, Timothy Dwight IV, Theodore Dwight, David Humphreys and Lemuel Hopkins. The group published The Anarchiad, The Political Greenhouse and The Echo. Joel also wrote the poem “Hasty Pudding” and the epic The Vision of Columbus (later re-titled The Columbiad).

Joel Barlow studied law while in Hartford and was admitted to the bar in 1786. However, when his law career stalled, he became involved with the Scioto Land Company, which was engaged in land speculation in the area that is now the southern part of Ohio. Efforts to promote land sales ultimately led Barlow to Paris, France, in 1788 in order to seek out investors and immigrants but the company failed disastrously in 1790.

Living in France during the beginning of the French Revolution made him sympathetic towards the French reformers. He was granted honorary citizenship of the new Republic of France in 1792, an honor shared with a number of other notable Americans.

Eventually, Barlow was given a diplomatic post in the American legation at Paris. In 1796, George Washington called on Barlow to assist with the freeing of the captured American seamen in Algiers and he was instrumental in the implementation of the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797. He returned to the United States in 1805 only to return to Europe six years later when President James Madison appointed him Minister to France. Joel died of pneumonia on December 24, 1812, in Poland after trying to meet with Napoleon.

Colonel Aaron Barlow (1750-1800) was the second child of Samuel and Esther Barlow. Like his brother, Joel, he was born in Redding, Connecticut, and he married Rebecca Sanford (1748-1839) in 1772. Aaron and Rebecca had eleven children. Shortly before his marriage, Aaron joined the military and served in the 5th Connecticut Regiment and in the 4th Connecticut Militia. Aaron died from yellow fever in Norfolk, Virginia, on August 12, 1800.

Thomas Barlow (1793-1859), a son of Aaron and Rebecca, was born on October 12, 1793. He studied law and served as the private secretary to his uncle, Joel Barlow, when he was Minister to France. Thomas met his wife, Frances Anica Preble (1796-1876), while in France and they were married in 1817 in Paris. Thomas and Frances returned to the United States soon after their marriage, settling near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Thomas and Frances had five children including a daughter, Anica Barlow Chambers (1821-1911). Thomas established a law practice in the Pittsburgh area and lived in the area until his death in 1859.

Rebecca Barlow, a daughter of Aaron and Rebecca, was born on October 12, 1788. She married Zalmon Olmstead (1783-1853) on November 24, 1805. Zalmon was the son of Lemuel and Silence (Weed) Olmstead, originally of Danbury, Connecticut. The family removed to Malta, Saratoga County, New York, around 1786. After Zalmon and Rebecca married, they settled on a farm located on the west bank of the Hudson River in the town of Moreau. They had thirteen children. Zalmon died in 1853 while Rebecca died in 1861.

Lemuel Gregory Olmstead, the oldest son of Rebecca and Zalmon, was born on July 5, 1808. He was educated at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, receiving a degree in engineering and naturalism in 1830. Thereafter he took a position as lecturer at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania in chemistry and mineralogy. In 1834 he entered the seminary at Princeton, but later transferred to Western Seminary in Allegheny (Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania. While in the seminary, he met his wife, Sarah Humphreys Marvin and they were married on December 20, 1838. They had one daughter, Sarah Lucy, who was born in 1840. Although he was an ordained minister, he pursued a career in teaching, holding positions in a number of schools over a period of many years. Eventually, he settled on the family farm in Moreau, New York, where he died on March 18, 1880.

Aaron Barlow Olmstead (1812-?), the second eldest son of Zalmon and Rebecca, was born on February 12, 1812, in Malta, New York. Like his brother Lemuel, he attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and studied civil engineering. From 1837 to 1839, he was the principal of North Fairfield Academy in Fairfield County, Connecticut. He decided to pursue a career in law and attended Yale Law School from 1840 to 1841. After completing his studies he was admitted to the bar in Saratoga Springs, New York. In 1849, he married Caroline Clement, a granddaughter of Gideon Putnam, the founder of the Gideon Putnam Hotel in Saratoga Springs. Aaron and Caroline had two daughters, Marie Clement and Kate Putnam. The exact date of Aaron’s death is unknown, but the collection holds pieces of his correspondence that dates to 1888.

Scope and Content Note:

The Barlow-Olmstead collection includes letters, notes, genealogies, and financial documents. Much of the collection was compiled in an effort to trace the ancestry and descendants of Joel Barlow (1754-1812), an American author and statesman. It appears that most of the genealogical material in the collection was accumulated by Lemuel Gregory Olmstead and Aaron Barlow Olmstead, who were great-nephews of Joel Barlow. The collection contains the Olmstead brothers’ correspondence and notes regarding their genealogical research, genealogical charts, and notebooks containing information on the family’s lineage.

The collection also contains an assortment of documents not directly related to Lemuel and Aaron’s genealogical research; however, these documents supplement the genealogical material either giving biographic information or portraying the family’s dynamics. These documents include letters, notes, newspaper clippings and financial documents, such as receipts and checks.

Most of the collection dates to the nineteenth century with the bulk of the material dating between 1850 and 1900.